ArabiaTerra

lol indeed... By all accounts he was a right nasty bar steward. And thats where I begin to have a problem with all this new-age nonsense. On the surface it's all nice smells and glittery crystals, but when you start to dig a little deeper you start to uncover some rather sinister and disturbing stuff. For instance, this site is selling daggers. http://www.pagandreams.co.uk/Catalogue/ProdView.aspx?prod=1171 What are they for then? And another thing, 'Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'. Have you actually considered the full implications of that statement?

Deterrance works! Does anyone really think Stalin's Red Army would have sat meekly on the Elbe river at the end of WW2 once the British and US armies had been shipped to the Far East to finish the war against Japan (without the atomic bomb, an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been required to bring the war to an end)? And do you really trust the USA to garuantee our security with their nukes, under all circumstances? Remember the USA doesn't have friends, they only have interests. When China is a multi-party state, when Iran is a secular democracy, when North and South Korea are geographical descriptions of the same country, when Russia is a member of the EU and NATO, when Iraq is stable and the Taliban is a memory, when the worlds primary energy source is no longer oil and the Palestinian/Isreali conflict is over and when India and Pakistan have amicably settled their differences.... I could go on, the world is a dangerous, unpredictable place. When the conditions above are met, then, and only then, will be time to put our nukes on the table along with everyone elses. I would rather see us dismantle all of our conventional forces before we give up our deterrant. After all, tanks and guns are sausage all use against someone who is threatening you with nuclear weapons.

I just bought Iron Maiden - Live after Death, superb! And then I realised it is twenty years since I first bought the tape. 8O What happened?

I can't find a specific address for suggestions but they do have a feedback page here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/contactus/form.shtml I waded through their complaints procedure to make my thoughts known!

I bought 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins locally for £20, only to find it on Amazon for £10

I have e-mailed the BBC several times since they changed thier forecasts to the fancy new 3-D map and ditched the actual forecast in the process. The rain/cloud info on the new map is all very well but without the pressure and wind speed/direction info it's pretty much useless. The last explanation I got for the changes is below : As you can see, we are all now considered too stupid to read a weather chart. I would like to suggest that, if we want our weather forecast to be restored to it's former usefulness, we all take 5 minutes to rattle off a quick e-mail to the beeb telling them how crap they are. After all, it's no more time than it takes to type one post to Shetlink and this might actually change something. I am just a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, but if several hundred of us cry out at once... well, we've all seen those excellent animated ads for the trade union (I forget which) with the ants and the bear!

^^^ Cool ^^^ Where did you find that, and is there one of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Of course, Warranty!

A couple of years ago I was in the market for a new tv. I found a local shop which sold the one I wanted but they were about £150 dearer than south (£650 compared to £500), nevertheless I decided to go local as, if there was any problem with the tv it would be dealt with quickly locally with the minimum of hassle. Of course, just before the garuantee ran out (luckily), my tv died. I phoned up the local shop to report the fault only to be told to bring the tv in myself. I then found out that the 'local' repair service they quoted on their garuantee involved them shipping my tv to Orkney! And furthermore I would have to do without a telly for the 3 weeks (minimum) it would take to fix. Needless to say, I phoned their head office south to complain (can you guess who it is yet?) and got some arses kicked. The next day a truck turned up to pick up my telly and drop off another 28" widescreen job to keep me going while mine underwent surgery. (in Orkney) The moral of the story? Don't assume that the aftersales service will be any better for being local. P.S How do you spell garuantee?

Welcome back to the real world JA. You've just learned the first two rules of conspiracy theory research :- Rule 1 : There is no conspiracy. Rule 2 : Co-incidence happens. I was a lot older than you before I learned them. (OMG, both those rules are exactly the same length.... )

I remember at the start of the 3rd film he was pulling his V8 interceptor behind a horse.

And I replied thus: Thank you for your 'explanation' of your insane decision to ship fish to thailand and back to avoid the labour costs here in Scotland. However I have to point out a few inconsistencies in your answer. You say: ' Scampi tails are always matured in freezer storage for three weeks before peeling. At present this happens in cold storage in the UK, in future it will happen during transport to Thailand. We believe that the carbon emissions of the transport will be roughly equal to those produced by maturing in freezers in the UK.' To freeze the fish for 3 weeks in Scotland uses a set amount of energy. The same amount of energy is used to freeze the fish on the ship to Thailand. In addition to this is the energy cost of moving the containers to Thailand and back. The transport costs incurred are entirely additional to any storage costs incurred in Scotland. You say: ' By sending the prawns to the Far East, the shells can be used for the manufacture of fish feed, or for extraction of a natural substance called chitin which is used in traditional medicines. When we peel in the UK, health and safety legislation requires us to dispose of the waste shells by incineration, which generates further emissions.' If UK Health and Safety law says these byproducts must be disposed off in a certain way, that is because to do anything else with them is dangerous. Not only do you intend to ship the fish to Thailand, but you also intend to dump your poisonous waste in Thailand as well! You say: 'This decision was made because of the improved quality it brings to our Scampi. We have spent two years trying to improve our product quality and in research, 70% of people preferred the hand peeled product. We firmly believe scampi produced using hand peeling makes the most of the fantastic quality of our Scottish Langoustine.' This is not an arguement for shipping the fish to the other side of the world and back, it is an arguement for paying Scottish workers to hand peel the fish in Scotland. Why don't you admit the truth. This decision was made on purely commercial grounds because it is cheaper to sack Scottish workers and use cheap far-eastern labour than it is to pay Scots a decent wage to do the work here. Well, you've made your decision, and I have decided never to buy any of your products again. I wish you no success in your new venture and I hope the people of Scotland drive your company out of business because of this. Yours ArabiaTerra P.S Why don't you sack yourselves and employ Thai managers? I'm sure it would save you money. [/i]

I got the following reply from Young's propaganda officer: Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for taking the time to contact us to express your concern regarding the recent news about Young’s plans to ship langoustine to Thailand for hand peeling, and the subsequent loss of jobs at our Annan site. I am sure you are aware that this issue received considerable media attention last week however the coverage included a number of inaccuracies about the situation. We would like to take this opportunity to correct these inaccuracies and state the facts, especially with regard to the proposed shipments to Thailand. The twice-monthly shipments to Thailand will be by standard container vessel, not air. This shipping method has the least environmental impact. We will not commission special transports but use scheduled shipping lines, which carry other goods between the Far East and UK on a regular basis. Only shipping Companies that demonstrate full compliance with the current EU legislation regarding energy efficiency and CO² emissions will be used. The total volume of scampi that Young’s will send to Thailand is expected to be between 400-600 tonnes per annum. This will require just two container shipments a month. The carbon emissions generated by the planned Young’s shipments are estimated to be around 200 tonnes per annum (not thousands of tonnes as quoted in some media). Scampi tails are always matured in freezer storage for three weeks before peeling. At present this happens in cold storage in the UK, in future it will happen during transport to Thailand. We believe that the carbon emissions of the transport will be roughly equal to those produced by maturing in freezers in the UK. By sending the prawns to the Far East, the shells can be used for the manufacture of fish feed, or for extraction of a natural substance called chitin which is used in traditional medicines. When we peel in the UK, health and safety legislation requires us to dispose of the waste shells by incineration, which generates further emissions. This decision was made because of the improved quality it brings to our Scampi. We have spent two years trying to improve our product quality and in research, 70% of people preferred the hand peeled product. We firmly believe scampi produced using hand peeling makes the most of the fantastic quality of our Scottish Langoustine. This has been an extremely difficult decision for Young’s, however this change forms part of our wider plan to grow the whole market for scampi and langoustine. We thank you for taking the time to express your views and we will consider them fully in our decision making process. Additional information is available on our website at www.youngsseafood.co.uk, but should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us. Yours sincerely Janice Howlett Consumer Care Manager Young’s Seafoods Ltd.

I don't have a car because, living in Lerwick, I don't need one. One of those flats as proposed by Hjaltland would have been a welcome upgrade from my scabby little bedsit. And even closer to the shops and services which I normally use anyway. I was more than a little pissed off when they were knocked on the head.

Humans first for me every time. It makes me sick to see those Animal Hospital/Supervets type programs where they are wasting tens of thousands of pounds on animals when children are dying in Africa Fair enough if it is one of the last of a critically endangered species, but I once saw a program where a woman was spending £16,000 on open heart surgery on her 10 year old dog! At most it would only have lived for 5 or six more years. It was obscene. Sometimes we really do need to stand back and think hard about our priorities. If all the money spent on pet food in a year was diverted to the poorest countries in the world we could solve world hunger! But then, the fact that anyone in this world has to go hungry at all is a sad indictment on our sick society

What pisses me off about this whole thing is the fact that these charges are still being levied. And that we still have to individually claim back our own money. It's high time the government called in the Chief execs of all the banks and ordered them to pay back all the money they have stolen from us since these charges became illegal on pain of being charged with theft and jailed if they do not comply. I think I feel a letter to Tavish and Mcalpine coming on.

I think it's very simple The sea freezes in the arctic. This increases the salinity of the water below the ice which makes it denser causing it to sink. It then flows south to the Caribean where it warms up and rises. This displaces the warm water above which flows North and gives us our nice balmy temperate climate. This circulation is called the North Atlantic Conveyor, the warm north flowing component of which is known as the Gulf Stream. It's what makes Northern Europe habitable. Now introduce Global Warming which is affecting the arctic approximatly twice as much as the average for the rest of the world (3 degrees C as opposed to 1.5 average worldwide). This is melting the Siberian permafrost and the Greenland icecap and introducing billions of tons of fresh water into the northern ocean. This fresh water does not sink as it is less dense as the salty sea so it sits in a layer on the surface. No sinking means no southward flow of cold water which means no northern flow of warm water which means no Gulf Stream. Analysis of the Greenland ice cores which provide a record of past climate stretching back for hundreds of thousands of years have shown that this is exactly what happened at the start of the last ice age and it was the recovery of the Atlantic Conveyor which triggered the end of that ice age and the beginning of the warm period which we are still living in today. The scary thing is that the switch from one climate state to the other happens (in geological terms) in the blink of an eye. It's one of those 'tipping points' you hear about. Unfortunatly, it is impossible to predict when the tipping point will be reached until it happens, but recent measurements of the Conveyor have revealed a 30% reduction in flow since measurements began in the 50's, most of which has happened in the last 10 years. Now, given Shetlands position, you can see that we are right in the front line of this disaster. One year, sometime soon, the days will get longer but the weather will get colder until the sea freezes, the snow will build up until it's weight turns the layers at the bottom to ice and 'Hey Presto' new ice age. And I haven't even mentioned the effect of the rise in sea level. 8O It is the greatest threat that has ever faced us and, I fear, it may already be too late! I, already, actively try to live my life in a way that minimizes the amount of carbon I produce. Anyone who does not do this (All you Kingcab pickup and SUV drivers out there) is a selfish squeeky clean poop tube of the highest order and you attract my utter contempt Remember, we do not inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it, briefly, from our children. It is they who will have to live in the village we are creating.

I'm an atheist (and proud of it). I vote for a James Watt Day, or maybe a John Logie Baird Day, or what about that guy that invented capitalism (can't remember his name offhand) or Alexander Graham Bell Day, or Rabbie Burns Day (Hang on, we've already got that one). Give me a few days and I'll get us the whole year off.

How about building a camp for our MSP's? Something along the lines of Officers married quarters at army bases. Reasonable basic accomodation. And if they feel they need something better they can pay for it themselves.

PC Format did a test a couple of months ago with a totally unprotected laptop on the web. They got 1/2 an hour of surfing before the computer was rendered totally unuseable. As far as broadband service goes, I have noticed a bit of a slowdown recently,but nothing that logging off and back on again doesn't fix. I am with TalkTalk rather than BT tho'. I ditched BT as soon as my contracted year was up because they were quick enough to cut their prices for new customers but refused to cut my bill. I still get junk mail from them begging me to come back but all this palaver just makes me glad I jumped when I did. Mind you, TalkTalk's customer service is no better. The same barely english literate Indian call centre. They are probably ok with Oxford/BBC english, but toss a regional accent (let alone a dialect) their way and you have garuanteed mutual incomprehension.

1. Close all faith schools. 2. All bonuses must be shared equally amongst all employees in the company (no more fat cats). 3. Keep our nuclear deterrant. 4. Ban 4WD vehicles except where a genuine need can be demonsrated 5. Extradite Tony Blair to Iraq to face war crimes charges.

"Let me explain the chain of command to you... it's a big chain I beat you with until you remember who's in charge here." Someone's signature on another forum I was browsing.

Just out of interest, was there a controversy like this about the Burra/Trondra bridges? Also what are the annual running costs of those, and how often are they closed for weather?

'How very amusing! Actually attacking our camp! Most amusing.' - Lt-Col Crealock to Major Clery, 22 January 1879

It should be pointed out that the fireworkers start setting up the display in the morning and work all day to set up the 1/2 hour display you get at 7.30pm. It then takes them 'til 10.30ish at night to clear up and make the site safe. That's a long day in the pissing rain and wind and not something you start if there is a bad forecast which will probably force you to cancel anyway. It's a bit more complicated than taking a few rockets out of a box